No More Mr. Nice Guy: Dornan Back on Offensive

So much for the low-key Bob Dornan.

In recent weeks, the former Orange County congressman--best known for his hard-right views and roaring rhetoric--had been taking a softer approach to his politics in competing with three GOP opponents in the June 2 primary.

No more. The old Dornan appears to be back.

He is putting together two mailers attacking U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, even though he technically doesn’t face the Garden Grove Democrat in June. He also plans to warn Republicans today that if they win by trashing him with 11th-hour hit pieces, he’ll run as a write-in candidate this fall.

Defeated in November 1996 by Sanchez by 984 votes, Dornan cried voter fraud in challenging the election in Congress. Now, after losing that battle as well, he is hungry for vindication and hopes to regain his party’s favor by retaking the seat this fall.

The quick end to his kinder/gentler phase came last week after he saw his name listed with Sanchez’s on the blanket primary ballot. “I realized I was running against Sanchez again--not in the fall, but right now,” he said.

For Dornan, 65, that means unleashing his attacks on Sanchez. He says his mailers, which he was finishing Monday night, score Sanchez for everything from her votes against banning partial-birth abortion to her life outside Congress.

Sanchez, 48, calls Dornan a “nasty man who can’t run on the issues.” Though she is unopposed in the primary, she nevertheless is advertising heavily on television and through the mail.

Seeking a Rematch

A Sanchez-Dornan rematch in the general election this fall would be one of the most expensive congressional contests ever. Each raised nearly $1.8 million by the end of March, second only to the top two House leaders. The money continues to pour in as leaders in both national parties contest the Orange County seat in vying for control of Congress.

Whether a rematch occurs depends on voters.

Dornan, of Garden Grove, must win the GOP nomination first. Running against him in the primary are family law attorney Lisa Hughes, 49, Superior Court Judge James P. Gray, 53, and retired aerospace engineer Cornelius “Chuck” Coronado, 71.

Besides Sanchez, others unopposed are Natural Law candidate Larry G. Engwall, 43, and Libertarian Thomas E. Reimer, 44, both engineers.

His Republican opponents assert that Dornan is soiled goods, especially in the Latino community, and cannot beat Sanchez. His 14-month-long challenge to her election rested largely on claims that Sanchez won with votes from Latinos who were not yet citizens and with other ballots cast illegally.

Dornan, who in other circumstances would have the GOP establishment’s support for a rematch, has battled Hughes for local endorsements. Her consultant, state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange), began the exodus from Dornan’s camp last year.

Hughes’ candidacy is built on the theory that she can neutralize Sanchez’s advantage among women, especially Republicans who support abortion rights.

“Lisa is the best opportunity we have to retake that seat,” said Dale Dykema, president of the Orange County Lincoln Club, a political action committee of affluent Republicans. “It would be a different type of race with Lisa and Sanchez.”

Gone from that match-up, he said, would be the emotionalism generated by Dornan’s election challenge, which inflamed many Latinos and allowed Democrats here and in Congress to depict Dornan and the GOP as racist.

Orange County Republican leaders, too, are angry. They cannot believe that Dornan let the seat get away, allowing Sanchez to create a Democratic beachhead in their GOP domain. To their added dismay, the election challenge made her a national heroine to many.

Dornan is indignant. “Is Bob Dornan a sore loser or did I have a legitimate impact on the issue of voter fraud?” he asked. “Did I not create a new standard for how every American thinks about the voting process?”

Though largely ignoring the jibes from his GOP opponents and their supporters, Dornan said in an interview Monday that he will warn Hughes at a luncheon today that if he loses the primary because of last-minute attacks, he will run in the general election.

“If she goes negative on me [in the mail], then I am going to be there until November 3rd,” he said. “I am going to run as a Republican write-in in the general election.”

The Sanchez seat is the only one in Orange County where Democrats predominate. Of those registered for the June 2 blanket primary, which permits voters to cast ballots for any candidate, 45% are Democrat, 38% are Republican and 12% are independent.

The district’s growing Latino population now represents 25% of the voters. Asian Americans constitute 12%, and the rest are essentially white. The district includes almost all of Santa Ana and Garden Grove, half of Anaheim and slices of seven other cities.

Unlike two years ago, Dornan is campaigning in earnest this spring. Though he has raised almost $1.8 million, legal bills and expenses left him with $149,000 in cash at the end of March, the last reporting period.

He is running as a party outsider, criticizing the GOP leadership locally and nationally for deserting him. He talks about what he did for the district, including getting grants for the Santa Ana River project, the cleanup of the Buena Clinton project and neighborhood policing in Santa Ana.

The generally confrontational Dornan had campaigned against his GOP rivals in uncharacteristic fashion: with a smile, not a shout. In wooing primary voters, Dornan is trying to hold together his old coalition, including abortion opponents, Vietnamese immigrants, blue-collar Democrats and gun-rights advocates.

Despite antipathy toward him from many Latinos, he is not writing off their votes. He has made a few appearances in the Latino community and at Latino Republican events, talking about their shared anti-abortion sentiments and Catholic heritage.

His politics remain hard right: Biblical positions against abortion and gay rights, and antebellum views of the federal government and states’ rights, regardless of whether the issue is shuttering the Internal Revenue Service or ending federal grants for education.

Airing Their Views

Dornan also favors a ban on so-called soft-money campaign contributions and opposes an assault weapons ban. He would give states all taxing power and have them forward revenue to the federal government. During the transition period, he would back a flat tax with limited deductions. He considers Social Security inviolable for senior citizens but would support optional, partial privatization. He backs vouchers to defray the cost of private schooling.

Those views helped him pick up endorsements from local school board trustees, anti-abortion conservatives in Congress such as Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Illinois), Orange County Supervisor Jim Silva, the California Republican Assembly and national Christian psychologist James Dobson, whose radio and television broadcasts reach about 28 million people nationwide.

Hughes has been running for office since early last year. A millionaire who made her fortune in a family law practice, she has flooded the district with mail for eight weeks and is running ads on cable television.

“I will spend what needs to be spent,” she said. She makes no apologies for her wealth, saying she is dedicated to giving something back to society.

Hughes was raised poor, abandoned by her single mother off and on through age 13, and spent time in foster homes. She sees her success as proof that drive and purpose win out: “I work hard and I am proud of it. I am the American dream.”

Gray and Dornan call her a carpetbagger who is ill-suited to represent the working-class constituency. She lives in Orange--outside the district--but said she is selling the house and planning to move into the district. The house is listed at nearly $3 million.

Hughes, who is head of the state Lottery, dismisses the Gray candidacy as a nuisance factor and believes she will win “by letting Bob Dornan beat Bob Dornan.” She called him “an embarrassment” to the district.

A certified public accountant, she says the top issue before Congress is an accounting problem. She wants all agencies to use the same bookkeeping rules. Otherwise, she says, you have “phony numbers” and nothing--from balancing the budget to saving Social Security--can get done.

“If anybody is uniquely situated in history--and has the passion to do it and the personality and the ability to make it happen--it is me,” she said.

Hughes opposes gun control and a ban on soft money and wants a flat tax or national sales tax to replace the income tax. She wants to protect seniors on Social Security while moving to an optional privatized system for others. She opposes government-funded abortion but would permit adults to have them in the first trimester. She supports school vouchers.

Hughes, a former Lincoln Club treasurer, is endorsed by Supervisors Todd Spitzer and William G. Steiner, state Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition and U.S. Reps. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) and Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands).

Gov. Pete Wilson, to whose campaigns she has contributed, has allowed her to use photographs of them in her mailers, though he has not endorsed her.

One Vote at a Time

Gray, who took an unpaid leave from the bench to run, has made walking the precincts and using volunteers the essence of his campaign. He has raised more money than Hughes--about $172,000 by the end of March--but lacks the personal funds to compete fully with her in the mail or on TV.

“What I am doing is not sensational; it is one on one,” he said. “People are responding to it. They can see I am not a politician.”

The judge walks precincts daily, going through trailer parks, neighborhoods and apartment complexes. He delivers his message in English or the Spanish he learned for the Peace Corps: “I know we can do better than Bob Dornan or Loretta Sanchez.”

Trying to imprint his name on voters, he invariably tugs at his white hair and leaves them with: “That’s Jim Gray--gray like my hair.”

Gray is frank about his goal of going after the crossover vote. He labels Hughes “a female Bob Dornan--just another politician.” He has a 26-year-old adopted Vietnamese son and believes that with his Vietnam Navy service he will win that ethnic community. He also is reaching out to independents and Democrats and trying to take Republicans from Dornan.

Hanging over the Gray candidacy is his declaration in 1992 that the war on drugs had failed and that cocaine, heroin and marijuana should be legalized. He called for drug sales to adults through pharmacies without prescription.

“I mislabeled it,” he said in an interview recently, explaining that he wanted to create a debate on the issue and now favors “investigating our options.”

In his 14 years on the bench, he created peer-pressure drug courts in high school and student programs to deter drunk driving. County lawyer groups have twice named him judge of the year.

Gray would sharply limit soft money in politics. He supports a ban on assault weapons and favors scrapping the tax code in favor of a national sales or flat tax. He supports “guaranteeing” social security for older people and privatizing it for younger workers. He would allow first-trimester abortions but opposes government funding for the procedure. He backs school vouchers.

Appointed to the bench by Gov. George Deukmejian, Gray is endorsed by four past presidents of the Orange County Bar Assn. and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

Coronado, who won a Purple Heart as a Marine on Okinawa in 1945, has no money and no staff. He is campaigning alone, walking door to door. He believes that he can defeat Sanchez and his GOP opponents by winning the Latino vote.

“There is no way the Republican Party can defeat Sanchez unless I run,” he said.

He supports a soft money ban and switching to a flat or sales tax. He opposes gun control and abortion rights. He supports school vouchers and would privatize the school system as well as social security.

* CHANGE OF VENUE: O.C. suit against Merrill Lynch will be in L.A. County. B1